


The Guide Star

by caliecat



Series: Fatherhood Five-0 [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Family, Fatherhood, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-21
Updated: 2011-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:12:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caliecat/pseuds/caliecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grace and Danny teach Steve the lessons of fatherhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Guide Star

It's the focus, Steve realizes, the way Danny's attention is so completely centered on Grace, as if nothing else exists in his world at this moment except her.

They're poised on the sidewalk in front of her school, Grace shuffling from foot to foot and fiddling with the strap of her backpack, Danny squatting down to meet her eyes in a position that must be killing his knee. The other parents flow around them with knowing, wistful smiles for the unmistakable father-daughter bond, the connection that shines as bright as the Hawaiian sun.

She rambles on, her soft voice rising and falling with emotion, her sweet face creased in a frown, while Danny fixes her pigtail and listens to her tale of schoolyard drama, nodding his head and asking questions, sympathizing with her girlhood angst and then coaxing a surprised laugh from her. Before long she's bubbling with happiness, sharing secrets about the new boy in class and gushing over her newest most favorite band.

And it's also how Danny's there even when he's not, a constant, steady presence in her life, whether separated by five miles or five thousand, a neighborhood or a continent away. Despite the upheaval of divorce, the relocation, the problems with Stan, everything, she's always known she could rely on her Danno, always been sure of his love, a rock-solid anchor in a sea of confusion and heartache.

Sometimes, in unguarded moments, Steve wonders what that's like.

~~~~~

When he first met Grace, he didn't know how to talk to her, what to talk about or even whether to talk at all. It's not like he had any experience with children, other than Mary, which doesn't really count since she's his sister. And because his father was a firm believer in the "kids should be seen and not heard" philosophy, he didn't get much practice interacting with adults when he was Grace's age.

So it was a major effort for him, learning a new language and navigating the unfamiliar signposts of her private universe.

He made plenty of mistakes along the way, like the time she asked about their big case, the one that was all over the news and had kept Danny from her side for a week. Distracted by exhaustion, he responded as he would to anyone, but when he started describing "targets" and "sightlines" and "takedowns" Danny yanked him away from her so fast he feared his wrist would break.

That night they had a long discussion—he pretended to listen while Danny ranted—about his general lack of social skills and the fine art of engaging eight-year olds at the appropriate level.

After that it got easier. He's always been a quick study, Danny's a half-decent coach when he isn't complaining and Grace displayed the patience of a saint, gradually losing her shyness around him and opening up more each time they were together.

Until finally, not long after Matt disappeared from her life, he morphed from a stranger who works with her father to "Uncle Steve".

~~~~~

Danny's tied up in court all afternoon and it's Steve's job to pick up Grace from school today. He hits the rendezvous point thirty minutes early so he can't possibly miss her, scrutinizes the arriving cars for possible threats and remembers to smile reassuringly when he catches her eye so she doesn't worry something bad happened again.

She's been a little on edge ever since the sarin incident, like they all have. Not that he can blame her for that. Danny's ashen face and gasping breaths still haunt his own nightmares.

He relaxes when she smiles in return and rushes down the stairs to greet him, calling out "Uncle Steve!" with such delighted surprise it makes his heart ache. Then her arms are wrapped around his neck for her usual affectionate hug and he has to hold her tight against his shoulder for a few extra seconds until he can compose himself.

When they get to his house he's easily talked into the role of assistant for her "special project", falling for her wide-eyed enthusiasm and earnest promises of "great fun". And that's how he ends up sitting cross-legged on his living room floor, steady as a rock while Grace uses him as a giant hatstand, arranging and rearranging her Barbie outfits across his outstretched arms in shifting combinations of patterns and colors, soliciting his opinion with such grave intensity it's all he can do not to laugh.

But he considers her questions with the seriousness they deserve, debating the merits of different shades of purple and the practicality of buttons versus zippers until the shadows fall long across the room. It's almost time for dinner when he hears the slam of a car door, the drum of approaching footsteps and then Danny's in the doorway before Steve can even begin to move.

Grace leaps up as soon as she catches sight of him. "Daddy! Look what we did today!" she announces with a child's matchless pride, waving a flag of cloth high in the air with one hand while gripping Steve's shoulder with the other.

Danny gives her an indulgent smile before sweeping his gaze over the room, taking it all in with his keen detective's eye. Doll's clothes and fabric scraps arranged in neat piles around Steve's legs. Loose sheets of graph paper and fat colored markers scattered across the floor. Juice boxes and plates of apple wedges arrayed on the coffee table.

Then he shifts his focus to Steve, still draped with tiny dresses and beaded necklaces, still sitting wordless under Grace's hand. Steve steels himself for the jokes, the rolling eyes and the sarcastic one-liners, sure that it will be a long time before he lives this one down.

But Danny only stands there, stock-still, regarding Steve with a look he's rarely seen directed at _him_ , an expression of surprise and wonder that soon melts into something else entirely, so warm and tender and transparently _fond_ it makes his cheeks burn and his heart race and by then he couldn't move if his life depended on it.

~~~~~

Later, after Grace falls asleep on the couch well into the second viewing of her favorite DVD, Steve trails along as Danny carries her up the stairs to the guest room and settles her on the bed.

"She's a great kid," he murmurs, watching Danny tuck an afghan around her and press a light kiss to her forehead.

"Yeah." Danny looks up and smiles, his eyes aglow with a father's pride. "You ever think about it?"

"What?"

"Having kids."

He shrugs, dismissing the idea like he has a hundred times before. "I'm not gonna have kids."

"Huh," is all Danny says before shooing Steve out of the room and closing the door.

~~~~~

It's a clear, moonless night and Steve can easily trace the outlines of the constellations as he leans back in his beach chair, drowsy and content, idly sliding his feet through the cool sand. They've been out here almost two hours while Grace sleeps, drifting in and out of conversation, drinking beer and listening to the waves break on the reef. Lulled by the surf's soothing sound, he's on the verge of dozing off when Danny speaks again.

"You should, you know."

"Hmm?"

"Have kids. You'd make a great father."

"No I wouldn't," he mutters under his breath, but Danny hears him anyway.

"Why not?"

He snaps to full alertness. Danny's got a tone, the same one Steve hears a dozen times a day, the one that churns his stomach and makes him want to blow things up, the one that says _I'm not letting go of this, I'll talk your ear off all night if I have to but you're telling me what I want to know._

"I don't want kids, okay, so can we drop this?"

"No, we cannot. Why wouldn't you be a good father?"

With the wisdom borne of too many hard-fought battles, he resigns himself to his fate. Maybe once he explains why it's such a bad idea Danny will understand. He twists in his chair and leans forward, staring at Danny's profile.

"Listen, I'm not like you, okay? I didn't have the big family, the perfect parents, I didn't grow up in a neighborhood with everyone in my business, I didn't know my grandparents, I never saw my aunts and uncles and cousins, I hardly even saw my own father and—"

"Whoa! Hold up." Danny's facing him now, using that placating tone Steve hates. "First, none of that matters and second, it's not rocket science. You love your kid and hope for the best. That's it."

But that's _not_ it, not by a long shot.

"No, Danny. It's not that simple. You're a natural at it and besides, you had people to show you how it works, what to do, what to say, everything. I had...well, I didn't have all that. Not like you."

He waves a hand in Danny's general direction, hoping the gesture conveys the entire truth of his childhood without him having to spell anything out. His cheeks are hot again, this time from embarrassment and something else that makes his throat ache and his eyes sting.

"Let's face it, I'm just not cut out to be anybody's father."

Danny's silent for so long he assumes the conversation's over. Relieved, he sits back and reaches for another bottle, flips off the cap, drains half of it in one gulp and steals a glance to the side. Danny's sitting on the edge of the chair watching him like a hawk.

"Steve, look at me." He waits until Steve reluctantly meets his eyes. "I see how you are with Grace. She loves you, you know."

"I know," he says quietly, humbled by the thought. "I, uh, I feel the same about her."

The rest of the sentiment dies on his tongue but Danny must read it on his face, even in the darkness, because he smiles back with the same unbridled affection he showed earlier.

"You're good with her. You're family. That's all that matters."

He shakes his head. Danny still doesn't get it. "Yeah, but she's—"

"You're already a great father."

Danny states it as an unassailable fact, with such absolute conviction that Steve has to duck his head against the wave of emotion threatening to pull him under. He wants to rebut, wants to argue that it's not true but the words won't come.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Danny sit back and face forward, toward the ocean. After a few more awkward moments, he does the same.

It's another quarter-hour before Danny's voice breaks the silence. "So tell me about that star-tracking thing you learned in the Army."

Steve rouses from his boneless sprawl. " _Navy_ ," he says, his lips curving into a smile. "And it's called navigation, Danny. Celestial navigation."

"Fascinating." Danny looks up and stabs a finger at the sky. "Is that the Smooth Dog star?"

"There's no Smooth—idiot," he says when Danny laughs. "There's a Dog Star, Sirius, but that's the North Star, Polaris. Sailors without GPS use it for navigation."

"Huh. So you don't actually have a star named after you. That's very interesting."

"Shut up."

He's laughing now, too, searching for the perfect comeback line when he remembers something he read in the paper last week.

"Hey, Danny? The Planetarium at the Bishop Museum has this program called _The Sky Tonight_ , it's like a tour of the stars over Hawaii, they have it twice a month on Fridays and maybe Gracie would—"

"She'd love to."

"Great. Let me know what dates are good and I'll get tickets."

"Deal."

And maybe it really is that simple. He anchors his toes in the sand, tilts his head back and finds Polaris again. The Guide Star.

The one that brings you home.


End file.
